


Unending Winter

by Dorotheian



Series: Canary Cage [2]
Category: xxxHoLic
Genre: Death of a friend, Depression, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hallucinations, Lost in Dreams, Post-Series, Sickfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-05
Updated: 2014-03-05
Packaged: 2017-12-24 16:10:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 11
Words: 15,471
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/941929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dorotheian/pseuds/Dorotheian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>With the Doumeki he knew gone forever, Watanuki spirals into a state of heroic BSOD. When he is unable to care for himself, his spirit friends step in to help, but their aid is limited. Watanuki must find the strength to pull through without his human anchor in the real world. Will he see his wish through? Or is he finally ready to let go?</p><p>Comes directly after "In the Eyes of Doumeki Shizuka" and before "Shall Your Wish Be Granted."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

You hear footsteps on the porch, and march out, imperiously holding out one hand for the groceries, sending one last glance at the shop from over your shoulder, thinking only of what you are going to say to him  _now—_ he was a week late for your birthday, and  _how does he find that in any way acceptable_? You haven't had a good talk in weeks, and now that he has lost your patience in showing consideration for his grief, you are finally angry enough to give him a good piece of what's really on your mind—

And then you stop and  _look,_  and everything you had gathered up to say simply falls away. You freeze in your tracks and snatch your hand back, your breath expelled in one sharp, painful, involuntary exhale. You cradle your hand, curl and twist it protectively against your chest.

As soon as Doumeki stepped through the door, you knew something was wrong.

He looked as hale as ever. No one else would ever suspect. You stared at him in horror, transfixed, knowing what you felt and yet utterly unable to understand what you knew—what you felt—how could this be—

"Watanuki, you know I am going to die." The stoic old man with silver balding hair lifts a cigarrette to his mouth and breathes out, and then he scrubs it out quickly. He's been smoking tobacco since Kohane died—you could smell it on his breath before, but this is the first time he's done it in front of you. It probably seems unnecessary to fear its slow, stealthy ill effects in his old age, when everyone is dying around him anyway. It is probably a comfort, to him. His smoke wafts the same scent that his grandfather Haruka preferred all those years ago, or as close to that scent as modern brands of tobacco can come: eighty years after Haruka's death, he still remembers the exact musty smell. Doumeki's face has hardly changed, but now he looks older than Haruka does in your dreams these days. Older than  _Haruka_...

You don't say a word, pinching the sleeve of your kimono between your fingers as great fear crashes over you like a wave. You might be having trouble breathing.

So this is the end.

Something must have shown on your face. "Watanuki—" Doumeki reaches out in concern. It feels like his hand is moving in slow motion, swimming towards your shoulder. Then it reaches, and the moment crashes back into the present.

"Hey... _what...?_ " you say weakly, uncomprehending. In your confusion and shock, you can't find the words. "Doumeki?"

"Watanuki? Are you all right?  _Watanuki_?" Doumeki's face wavers before your eyes. You can't move, can't speak. Just—just barely, you manage to twitch your head from side to side. With both hands now, he shakes you by the shoulders. Physically you are young, and he is old and slightly weakened by age, but he is still the stronger of you both. "Watanuki, it's all right. It's all right. You can see it on me, can't you?" He looks at you, brow furrowed. "As soon as I walked in, you knew. That it's my time."

He holds you upright by both shoulders as you sag backwards, chin dipping until it touches your collarbone, lost in misery. You knew what you saw, but it couldn't be true. It was not sickness, an overshadowing of ill health, or any ailment of the body. There was no accident waiting to happen. There was nothing to explain why the cold, icy, vacuous aura of death dogged the footsteps of a pure one such as Doumeki. There was no cause. As such it was a thing contrary to the concept of natural _hitsuzen_ , a perversion of fate, and it was irreversible.

Unless it was a thing he had  _chosen,_ of his own accord.

Doumeki— If he  _knows_ — This is not nothing.

He gingerly sets you back on your feet, and releases you cautiously, watching carefully for any waver or sign to threaten that you are about to fall again. "Are you afraid?" Doumeki asks, hesitant to breach the distance between you.

_Yes._

It's all you can feel. Your hands clench. But your fear will make no difference to what is going to happen. "I can't—I can't stop you," you say haltingly.

Doumeki briefly makes a face that is both cranky and impatient. "Of course not," he says, dismissive. His cold expression says,  _like I would forget what you pulled after the Spider's Grudge incident. I'm not so stupid as to give you an opportunity to sacrifice yourself, even to save me._

"But this isn't natural, you know," you say, in a faraway monotone. "That is... _I_  know."

He squints.

" _Something's_  not right, but I can't stop it." You shiver. "This isn't—you didn't—"

"Didn't what?" Something in his voice sounds resigned. Waiting for you to catch up.

"You didn't ask me...didn't ask me to do any..." The words won't come. You shudder again. " _Why_? How  _could_  you?" you whisper.  _This isn't some thing you should decide yourself!_ "You know I...I could have..."

"There wasn't anything you could have done."  _Meaning_   _it was on purpose._ "I made a deal," Doumeki continues.

Your face bleaches of color. "What."  _He didn't!_  "What deal?" Sick dread, worse than fear, seeps into your stomach.

"There is only one way to ensure that someone takes care of you." He glances away. Doumeki lifts the cigarrette to his lips, then lets it drop; he looks into your eyes. "It is a family matter, Watanuki," he says, at his most direct. "A bit of family knowledge passed down." His eyes look soft, but also wary.

"That's a spirit—" you start. "But what did you offer— But  _how_ —"

"If the liaison is one of choice, and the bargaining terms of the exchange is sufficient, then there are circumstances that will allow what is necessary to take place, even though I am a purifying exorcist. My instructions were specific, and they worked only as they would for one with my ancestry."

"But—"

"Watanuki, trust me."  _As if._  Doumeki sighs. "I cannot tell you any more. Before she passed, Kohane told me this was the way things had to be. It was her last dream of the future. So that I could come back. That was the plan."

"What?" you say faintly.  _She—she—_ Kohane _did?_ This feels like betrayal.

"It won't be long, Watanuki. I'll be back," he says, ever-patient.

"But you're dying...except you're...I mean, you're  _going_  to die..." you blubber.

"While  _you're_  waiting for Yuuko. I'm the only one left. I'd be dying soon, anyway, of old age, or cancer. Only a little while ago I learned that my eldest grand-daughter is having a baby boy. You can't or won't take care of yourself, so I'll come back for you." He says it matter-of-factly. "Surely you can see it is better this way, for the old to make way for the new."

"You  _can't_ ," you insist, uselessly.

"But you are doing  _this_ , and so I have  _done,"_ Doumeki growls, and for a long moment he outright glares at you with undisguised anger and frustration—and then he visibly calms. It is eerie to watch. How long has he held these feelings inside of himself, while you never suspected? " _My_  part. I've decided." He said it with such dark, deadly firmness that it immediately ruled out all possibility of compromise.  _Don't you understand? I did this because of YOU._

There was nothing else to say, because you never could convince each other. And you never saw eye to eye. That was the one thing that never seemed to change. Right now, there's nothing you can do, yourself, to change this. If it was by his own will, then the change is irreversible, and he will not allow it.

At a loss for knowing what else to do, you bring out the wine from your stores and open it for Doumeki. Out on the front porch, the two of you sit and drink it in silence. It doesn't feel like either a commemoration or a farewell, nor like anything else. The aftertaste of the bottle tastes sour, empty of meaning, holding nothing but the dry taste of alcohol. You didn't check what you grabbed from storage but you suspect that even if it had been your best vintage, it wouldn't have mattered. Neither of you say anything for a while.

"You will never be  _left alone_ ," Doumeki says suddenly, his voice oddly clear; it has to be on purpose. But you don't know why. This has to be a lie. "Not again." Yes, _yes_ , it is a lie. It must be.

The wind whuffles past your ears, blocking them from sound, blowing away all of Doumeki's next words, the ones that are probably intended to be conciliatory, explaining. Your heart is busy breaking. Your mind is too full to take in anything but the fear and darkness that has engulfed your future. You struggle to put your feelings in some kind of order, to prioritize them in some kind of noble hierarchy, but it is impossible because each one, once examined, stems from selfishness at its root, feeding your neediness, your greed, your insecurity in this moment in a vicious, tainted cycle.

Dimly you realize that you should be angry at Doumeki on principle for daring to take his own life, but there is no fire in you to summon on that score. All your energy is concerned with your own well-being. There is no question—  _If he does this it will surely kill you._ The threat clings to your weak survival instinct, pinches and pokes it until flares into desperate life. It is a despicable, a horrible, hateful thing; the panic it presses down on you looms so large in your head that you can come up with no other logical reason for why what Doumeki has done is so wrong. Only that it is wrong because it  _hurts,_  and it hurts  _you,_ and right now that is the only thing you can see.

For whose sake has he done it? How can he claim that he has done this because of you, for you? This is  _not what you wanted!_  Doesn't he  _know_  that? Clearly it is not for his  _own_  sake, but who else could it be for? This is pain, this is pure agony _,_ what he has done. Old and familiar, bitter anger clangs the bars of its cage in your skull and lets them ring:  _How can he claim to know what I need and yet do this to me? If he could think of doing this then he must never have known me at all! If this is the way he deals with me, let him rot with his choice!_

But the truth. You lift your head, flick your tongue over your chapped lips, and your mouth opens:  _I will miss you._ The brittle words won't come out, like all the times you wanted to thank him and couldn't. This is the same, in some strange way. Except this time, instead of confusion holding you back, it is a choking despair. Your head lowers under the weight of the words you should say, but they will not come. All of your coaxing and pleading and begging has no power. Silent tears flow without cease as you rock back and forth on your heels.  _Don't do this, don't do this, don't die, don't leave me—_

Late that night, unable to coax another response from you, he leaves.

A week later, he dies of a mysterious illness that you know was explained away by his family as a freak heart attack. He was eighty-five, and ailed of no known diseases.

For fifteen years, that's how it was. He must have made arrangements. Just as before, food arrived on your doorstep once a week, and not a soul but customers and spirits came. Those fifteen years were lonely, and you don't like to remember them. They felt like one long, long, long day that never seemed to end, that never felt better or different or even any worse. That day went on, and on, and on, while you slept. Yuuko was still a wish made on the wind. You'd almost forgotten the reason why you were still there, waiting; forgotten about the world outside. The shop shrank, constricted, and the garden walls grew thicker.

You never saw the end in sight. One day it was over, and you were still waiting. The kid perched on your doorstep was fifteen; and his name was also Doumeki Shizuka. From then on, he was with you. You didn't know how he got there, but he was there. Doumeki's promise, the one you never even asked him to make, that you didn't want him to make—whether knowing or not, Shizuka was the one who kept it.

Things changed. The timbers of the shop didn't creak or moan as they had, and the rafters didn't seem to loom so low, nor the rooms feel as dark, damp, and cramped as before. Your world expands inch by inch, little by little. Someday you will see the face of the sun again. Someday, you will re-enter Time.


	2. Four Seasons

It was spring when he left. Doumeki, that is. Left. If one could call it that.

There had been cherry blossoms. He missed Watanuki's birthday, and came a week late. Watanuki had been worried that something was wrong. And then he had come back, and that was when the blossoms had bloomed that year. He should have known. Like Doumeki would miss his birthday, which he hadn't done for seventy years, except for...

He stopped that thought. He did not go there.

Watanuki laughed hollowly. It was the farthest sound from joy.

He sifted the crumbling dirt of his summer garden and wondered why he should summon the energy to plant anything this year. The sun had baked the earth, and the earth had cracked and crusted under the heat to give up its water. But as dry as it looked, if it was watered regularly, it would become fruitful. Maru and Moro watched him with tense, still faces, waiting for his signal, clinging to each other palm to palm.

Watanuki stood and looked at the dipping noon sun. It felt like it had just been rising over the horizon a few moments ago.

He knew it hadn't.

The shadows lengthened.

"Let's go to bed," Watanuki muttered to the girls, and walked back into the wishing shop without doing anything.

They didn't argue, traipsing behind him, whispering behind their hands. If it was a language, he didn't know it. He didn't have even have the energy to listen closely enough to tell.

* * *

He planted, in the end, only because some of the natural wards would have failed if he hadn't. But the garden was sparse, and when autumn came, he let the garden wither, and let the harvest rot to nothing. He told himself the garden needed a fallow year.

The leaves on the trees shriveled and turned brown, flaking off the branches like dead, dried skin. What little rain there had been had encouraged the mold. Watanuki felt the chill of winter through the cotton of his  _yukata_.

Under the leaves, the garden was dying.

Watanuki tried to bring himself to care. The wind blew harder, blasting his skin.

"Watanuki. Watanuki," said the little back pork bun at his feet, very worried. "Come in from the cold." The  _kuromanju_  Mokona bumped at his ankles, making him stumble forward, but he didn't otherwise move. "Watanuki. Watanuki! You'll get sick! Watanuki, listen!" Mokona hissed desperately. "Please!" It was her last resort. Mokona was usually too cheerfully rambunctious to bother being polite.

"Yes," he mumbled, and slowly went inside.

* * *

When he came back out, it was unmistakably winter. His breath misted in the air. The cold seemed to get into his lungs, and stay there. He began to cough.

Mokona whined at his ankles like an restless mosquito, bouncing up and down anxiously, running and jumping at him to make him move, even stumble, towards the right direction for just a little bit—

Instead, he sat down hard on the porch. Snow fell overhead. The yard was covered in glittering white snow. Spring would be long in coming.

Mokona leapt into his lap, and curled up there, trying to warm his hands, reduced to crooning and burbling, for there were no words that Watanuki would listen to. Only her feelings.

He fell into a trance, mesmerized by the sparkling whiteness. He thought about moving only when he realized, with a galvanizing jolt, that his feet were completely numb. He moved then, but slowly, achingly, like the old man that he supposed he was.

* * *

Maru and Moro tried locking the doors to the garden at night, but their efforts were ineffectual. When Watanuki sleep-walked, he would open the doors while they slept and wander out to the porch under the moon, still in his pajamas. In the morning they would find him there, cold to the touch, barely alive. The girls would drag him inside and stoke the fire and cover him in warm water bottles and blankets. And then they hid, crossing their fingers behind their backs as they waited.

Mokona was frantic. She could not predict Watanuki's behavior, nor could she understand it.

Watanuki was waiting for Doumeki. Waiting for the spring to come.

But though the snow melted, the clouds overhead—sometimes thick, sometimes thin—covered the sky in grey without relent. There was not a sign of the blue sky above, to the heavens.

* * *

The world outside seemed to forget about them. Before, Watanuki would have customers once a week, sometimes once a month, sometimes twice a week. For the last few years the number of customers had slowed to a trickle, just before Doumeki...left...but Watauki hadn't worried.

He didn't have energy to worry. Watanuki could not have safely dealt with them, anyway. The few he ran into he listened to for as long as he could stand, and then he fetched the item they needed from Yuuko's stores, looking regal but weary. None of them had needed more than that, and they hadn't come back, except for the one person with the insoluble wish whom Watanuki had turned away at the door before locking it.

Otherwise the world outside let him alone. And Watanuki fell completely to pieces.


	3. Mountain Water Well

The old, ancient pipes froze one night. Only the self-repairing spells, dormant ever since before Yuuko's time, kept them from bursting apart as the ice expanded within the metal.

Maru and Moro conferred among themselves in the kitchen. Watanuki was making...something. He had pulled ingredients from the fridge and hadn't sorted them. He put a pot on the burner, frowning absently. When he turned the cold tap on the sink, then the hot tap, no water came out.

"No water in the pipes. No water," Maru sang softly, and Moro chimed under her breath, "No water. Only ice. Ice, ice, ice." They said it in the corner, to each other, very quiet, trying not to be heard.

But Watanuki heard. He stood blankly, thinking. His mind struggled to process what was before his eyes, to think what there was to be done. At last he remembered. There was more than one way to get water. Yuuko had showed him, once. Turning off the taps, he went outside to the back garden, and stopped at the well. It was the well connected to the pure water from the spirit mountain. Surely, as this was an emergency, it would be permissible...

Uncertain as to how to proceed, he took the bucket from the rope and dropped it in the water. It fell a very long ways; he heard the splash at the bottom, which was very faint. In that moment he blanked, for there did not seem to be any way to get the bucket back.

Slowly and tentatively, the freezing water of the well rose from the depths until it came to cover his hands. Then the bucket collided with his fingers. A pair of hands reached from below the rising water to clasp his wrists. Watanuki jerked back in surprise.

They were slight, slender hands, but strong. They pulled. Watanuki spluttered as the hands climbed up his arm and grasped his shoulders. The water swelled up once more and fell over the stones of the well with a  _whoosh_ , and the Zashiki-Warashi rose up and threw her arms around the shopkeeper. The rest of the water fell with a loud, final splash, flinging droplets of water everywhere. And then the water sank back down, more quickly than it had come. The bucket bobbled at the bottom, a dark speck among the reflective silver water.

Secure in Watanuki's arms, the Zashiki-Warashi arched herself to look at Watanuki, gently cupping his chin between her hands so she could see him better, so he could see her. His eyes had trouble focusing, and he was shivering after being doused in the ice-water.

"Zashiki-Warashi," he murmured.

"Yes, Watanuki," she replied gently, "It is I." She wiped the water from his face and wished she could take the pallor from his skin. "Will you let me come to you?"

"Yes," he mumbled.

 _It has been too long_ , thought the Zashiki-Warashi unhappily; she inhaled sharply as she looked down on him. "Your hands are so cold and stiff, like the white bones of a corpse," she murmured. "I saw them through the water. I had not seen you in years. So I came."

He did not respond. His arms had begun to lose their strength.

She slipped out of his grasp and pulled herself out of the well, easily slipping over the side. "You are very sick," she told him, and smoothed slick, wet bangs from his forehead. Under her palm, his forehead was warm.

Watanuki pulled back, and shook his head.

"You were trying to get water out of the well, weren't you?" the Zashiki-Warashi said searchingly. "Did you not call for my aid? You had not sent word in months."

Watanuki said, "the pipes froze..."

"I see," said the Zashiki-Warashi; she did not know quite what he spoke of, but she knew it must have been a human problem from how apologetic he sounded. That did not bother her. "How can I help?"

Watanuki said, "Water. For soup and...for tea." He gestured listlessly at the bucket, now back at the bottom of the well. His hands shook slightly as he did so.

The Zashiki-Warashi brought the bucket back up, and set it on the stones for him. Watanuki stared at it, and reached to pick it up, but the water was so heavy that he almost tripped, and he fell to his knees instead. Using her power, the Zashiki-Warashi deftly rescued the water. She turned, and said, "Watanuki, something's wrong—"

Watanuki's knuckles turned white where they pressed against the ground. "Let's get back to the house," he said, eyes closed, and a violent shiver racked his body. Then Watanuki stood up, swaying. But just as she had thought he might have reached equilibrium, his face abruptly went white, his knees buckled and he fainted.

The Zashiki-Warashi dropped the bucket and immediately knelt at his side. She took his glasses off and slapped him hard, and waited for him to come back to his senses. After a few tense seconds, he came to with a low moan.

"This isn't right," the Zashiki-Warashi told him.

Watanuki closed his eyes.

"Watanuki, will you allow me to nurse you?"

"Mmm." He nodded slightly and sat up, though he immediately pressed his forehead to his knees, and wrapped his arms around them. The Zashiki-Warashi decided that was answer enough.

When he was ready, she took his hand and slowly led him into the house. She had Maru and Moro strip him of his garments and bring him dry clothes. She left rather than watch, but she tucked him into bed himself, and sat at his side so he would not stir. As soon as he lay down, he fell asleep, despite the chills. Mokona bounced to his side.

The girls shut the doors they had opened and brought plates of food and warm milk, leaving them on the floor next to the bed. He was not ready for either, at the moment, but she recognized the warmth in the gesture.

She sighed. Watanuki's companions were powerless to help him when he would not help himself. She could see it had caused them much distress. Well, it would not be their burden anymore.

The Zashiki-Warashi wiped his brow and sang to him.

When he began sleeping for real for the first time in weeks, she slipped into the garden to find healing herbs. He had most of what she needed. What he did not, she politely requested of the air spirits, and soon enough, stray birds brought her a tussock of the plants she asked for. She burned some of the sweet-smelling herbs in his room. With others she made poultices.

He woke up with a fever, and the battle began. She rolled up her sleeves, and became busy. It would have been so easy to heal him deep in the mountains. Here in the human world, her powers were not at full strength. But she did what she could.

* * *

The Zashiki-Warashi was deep in her work when the Ame-Warashi stopped by. The Zashiki-Warashi barely noticed the rumbles outside, nor when the rain began to pour, and then to pound, and finally to sweep across the land in sheets, and to flood the drains and threaten to swallow up the streets in a flood. It was probably a natural thunderstorm, but there was something brooding and ominous about it.

The Ame-Warashi dissolved out of the rain, gripped her umbrella and stalked inside the house to stand behind the Zashiki-Warashi with a truly terrifying expression on her face, the umbrella half-raised. The Zashiki-Warashi turned around suddenly and squeaked at the sight of her.

The Ame-Warashi's face twisted. Her eyes fixed on the form lying prone past the softspoken blue-haired girl. "The  _fool_ ," she said coldly, her eyes fixed on Watanuki. Her swift glance comprehended everything in an instant. "Tell me why I should not end his miserable life right  _now_." Her rage, though carefully undirected so as not to harm, was nonetheless terrible to behold. " _Mercy_ ," she snarled to herself.  _I thought we went through this already, after the spider's grudge. How could he let himself fall into such a state?_

The Zashiki-Warashi, speechless, stared back at her red-headed mentor in distress with silent pleading eyes.

The Ame-Warashi softened. It would have been better if she had not said anything, but her temper did always get the better of her. She had been speaking to herself, not to her charge. And it was not as if she would ever do as she threatened. She would not take a life. She despised people who drowned kittens in storm drains. But seeing the young shopkeeper like this, the red film of anger came down over her eyes, and she had wanted someone to know it— Watanuki, of course, but he was not conscious. However, even if he had been awake, the question was whether he would comprehend what her fury was for. The Zashiki-Warashi certainly didn't. To the Ame-Warashi, they were both like lovesick puppies. Watanuki would be no better.

"Don't look at me like that!" the Ame-Warashi snapped at the Zashiki-Warashi, swishing her umbrella defensively. "I know you love him! It would be kinder, that's all." She harrumphed and sat down beside the Zashiki-Warashi on the bed. "Look, see how he suffers! It's a miracle he lasted this long!" But as the Zashiki-Warashi continued to look upset, the Ame-Warashi hastily backed off. "Look, I didn't mean that," she said, more kindly. "But you have never been through so much pain as he has suffered every day of his lifetime, and that lifetime has been extended far beyond his means. He should be let go."

The Zashiki-Warashi shook her head. "He is very strong," the Zashiki-Warashi whispered.

The Ame-Warashi snorted and folded her arms. "I don't know what you're talking about.  _Look how close he is to death,_ " she said sharply.

"He's hanging on." The Zashiki-Warashi reached toward the golden life-line pulsing in his chest. It shone feebly, but it brightened as fingers came close enough to touch it. "He wants to pull through."

The Ame-Warashi still looked skeptical.

The Zashiki-Warashi laid a hand on his forehead and Watanuki stirred in response. She sang him a verse from a song, and his lips curved absently in a slight smile.

The Ame-Warashi was nevertheless unimpressed. "I don't know  _what_  you see in him."

"Courage," answered the Zashiki-Warashi, and blushed.

"And kindness," replied the Ame-Warashi, looking resigned. "As you have said countless times before. Useless human qualities. Liable to get one killed. Hardly practical."

"His soul is beautiful," said the Zashiki-Warashi.

The Ame-Warashi shifted uncomfortably, letting her umbrella sweep across the tatami. She could not deny that she saw it also. "Well, there is that. Which is _also_  why every spirit within five hundred feet wants his blood."

"It is a waste," said the Zashiki-Warashi fiercely. "Such a bright soul should shine for all eternity."

"He  _has_  that chance," said the Ame-Warashi, looking down at the shopkeeper dryly. "I don't think it has brought him much more than grief. Humans are not meant to live this way." She paused. "If his lifespan had been so drastically altered, it is even possible that he would have died before now."

Then the Zashiki-Warashi fell silent.

The Ame-Warashi began to feel just a little bit bad that she had not broken the news more gently. The Zashiki-Warashi really loved the boy; she wanted to comfort her and make it all better. But she was too practical. She had just bluntly spoken the truth, as she saw it. It was better than raising false hope.

She wanted to protect her charge. But the Zashiki-Warashi was still young, barely more than an adolescent in the spirit world. Falling in love with a human...it was such an easy way to get hurt. The Zashiki-Warashi was so pure, she might go mad from the strain if he outright refused her; and if he died, that would be almost as heavy a blow. The Ame-Warashi supposed she was lucky that the boy had lived as long as he did.

"Ame-Warashi, will you help this child live?" the Zashiki-Warashi turned to her, on her knees, pleading. And then she bowed.

 _'This child?'_  The Ame-Warashi's eyes widened slightly. Had the girl grown? What had happened to her crush?

When she thought back, the Zashiki-Warashi had grown quite a bit since she had last seen the boy. She had not cried over Watanuki's hurt, for one, which would have drawn the  _karasu-tengu_  (who would have surely beaten him to death with their paper fans since the fever hadn't killed him), but had immediately immersed herself in work. She had not given up, she had not despaired. She had dared to act without the Ame-Warashi to advise her, in accordance to her heart.

In the end, the Ame-Warashi could hardly refuse a request like that.

She plopped to her knees beside the boy and gingerly laid down her umbrella. "Well, if I must..." she muttered. "I will see what I can do. But no promises!" she said sharply, quickly holding up a warning finger as the Zashiki-Warashi beamed at her. "His deterioration is such that it is entirely up to him whether he will respond to healing and recover."

The Zashiki-Warashi's sunny smile continued unabated. "Then he will surely recover. For he is strong."

Taken aback, but not terribly surprised, the Ame-Warashi shook her head and held her tongue. It was an old debate between them; the Ame-Warashi would not have had it any other way. When it came down to it, she would do her work, for the girl's sake if nothing else.


	4. Let Me

Is he dreaming? Spots dance before his open eyes.

The room fades into view slowly, a grainy, pockmarked image. As if his glasses were dirty. Watanuki palms his face. No glasses. The ceiling above is flickering, the light buzzing slightly. Or is that his ears? It's so hard to tell. Things are so blurry and weird.

He lets his eyelids slide shut, and when he opens them again, Doumeki is hovering over him.

He opens his mouth. Closes it.

Doumeki reaches for his chest. For an instant he rests his hand there, just above his left ribs, and then he pushes through the skin, just barely under it, just like the Zashiki-Warashi had on Valentine's day, when she extracted Doumeki's soul. Watanuki's heart kicks  _hard,_  hard enough to bruise. Watanuki imagines a purple mark blossoming under his translucent skin like a flower. Doumeki withdraws his hand, looking satisfied, while Watanuki splutters.

 _How are you?_  Doumeki says calmly, back to kneeling at Watanuki's side with the same old eyes, the same mouth. The same amused quirk in his perpetual slight frown. It's weird how Watanuki's eyes focus only on bits of him, rendering them in perfect clarity while obscuring the rest. There are also parts of Doumeki that he can't see, for no matter how hard he tries to look, the image just refuses to comply.

"What-did-you-do-to-me-you- _bastard_ ," Watanuki tries to snarl, but he can't. He has to cough, great hacks racking his lungs. It comes out as a scratchy, hoarse whisper instead. The cough continues to rack and contort his body.

Doumeki, Watanuki can see, is even more amused with this answer, which sounds much more like Watanuki's old self. He doesn't reply, but the quirk to his mouth widens a bit. He tilts his head.  _Keeping you from dying._  His tone is dry.

Doumeki couldn't be happier with that job, Watanuki thinks bitterly.

"I just wanted to follow you," Watanuki explains, and a tear slips down one cheek. "If Yuuko's not coming back—she's not, is she—but you always thought I was foolish—to—to wait— Is death so horrible and wrong?  _Tell me why won't you let me_."

Doumeki shakes his head, enigmatic and mysterious, seeming a little farther away, gazing over the top of Watanuki's head.  _You know why._

No, he doesn't know, doesn't understand.

"Why can't you let me go?" Watanuki whispers bitterly, when his lungs stabilize enough to speak. He crushes the edges of the sheets between his fingers. "Stop helping! I don't  _need_  your help. Isn't this what _you_ did? Why can't you let me decide for myself?"

The smile slips from Doumeki's face, wipes it clean. Now he's expressionless. That is the face Watanuki absolutely hates the most.

"For all I know you're not even here," Watanuki rasps, clutching the covers of his bed with clawed fingers.

Doumeki fades, his essence blown away into the shadows and a wind that gutters the few candles lighting the room.

Ha. It was an illusion. He knew it.

But even in the brief moment it takes to gloat, guilt and gloom descend.

Something flutters across the floor, lifted by a brief wind: a paper, a feather, a wing? Just in case Doumeki is still waiting around, Watanuki sits up to yell at the air, "I AM NOT GOING TO DISAPPEAR, YOU BASTARD! IF THAT'S WHAT YOU'RE SO AFRAID OF, JUST LET ME DIE!" The effort slams him back down onto the pillows and he heaves for breath for a very long time.

The damage is done. Once uttered, it became a promise that he is bound to keep. It was a trick. This was what Doumeki had wanted.

If Doumeki was there—if Doumeki was ever there—he doesn't respond.

I must be going about it all wrong, Watanuki thinks deliriously. Dying shouldn't be such an effort.

 _You think that because disappearance takes no effort, because disappearing is what you know...that death is also easy. You promised you would not take the easy way out. You belong to the living._  Watanuki hears the voice as very still, very calm. Doumeki's voice pauses, continuing in a conversational tone,  _There are much easier ways to die than self-neglect. The vehemence of your denial is also the proof of your care... So don't be foolish._

Watanuki looks around for the source of the voice, but Doumeki is nowhere to be found.

Darkness reaches up and overwhelms him. He sleeps with much tossing and turning and sweating and waking and twisting and struggling with himself and the sheets, much unlike the dead, and very much alive.


	5. Proboscis

Watanuki dozes fitfully until a butterfly lands on his nose, and his eyelids flutter open. He's repulsed, but fascinated; he can just barely focus on the butterfly. It has yellow and black swallowtail wings, with a soft, hairy brown body. It appears to breathe as its wings waft up and down. Its orange and faceted alien eyes are opaque, unpredictable. He watches as it coils and uncoils the long leathery proboscis. He's just about to blink, thinking that it is about to fly away, when the butterfly's proboscis lashes out like a whip and stabs him in the white of his eye. Watanuki shrieks and claps one hand over the sharp sting. The startled butterfly leaps up and flies away.

Watanuki slowly slides his fingers off his eye and feels it gingerly. It doesn't actually hurt that much; it was his horror that had magnified the pain. Which eye had the butterfly stabbed, again? Doumeki's or his? His, probably. Yes, it was the left one. His frantic, panicked breaths are finally slowing; his heart has already calmed down from the fright, though he can hear the thudding of his heartbeat, deep and even, pounding from the back of his skull. It will soon go away, but right now, his head aches.

It suddenly crosses his mind to wonder if this is some kind of bizarre message from Yuuko.

He turns his head, and there she is, cloaked and lounging in the corner, inscrutable as usual. She's wearing the butterfly dress, the one of the drooping yellow-black swallowtail; it seems extra vivid and real, somehow, as if it has taken on a life of its own. She takes the pipe out of her mouth and breathes smoke at him. He coughs. She raises an eyebrow, puffs on the pipe once more.

"Good, that gave you a start. I was told by your very good friend Doumeki that you will not disappear. That is good to hear," she says, sounding ironic. "That was my last wish, after all."

"I won't die, either," he mutters. "I'm waiting for you, after all. I wanted to see you...once more."

"Oh really? Three cheers for Watanuki-kun!" Yuuko claps her hands together, resting them under her chin and to the side, with a mockingly bright smile. "Watanuki, Watanuki, Watanuki!"

Watanuki looks away, embarrassed. So Yuuko gets up from her chair in the corner to cross the room and lie down parallel to Watanuki on the futon. She drapes herself over the side, and her long, long straight hair spills and slithers and pools over the blankets. The butterfly dress seems to glow mysteriously; Watanuki wonders whether the dress has a life of its own. She props her chin on one hand and grins at him.

"What are you doing?" he mutters.

Mischievous, she lifts a finger to Watanuki's lips, and brings her face comes very close to his, as if searching for something in it, evaluating him.

"..."

He's the shopkeeper. He's resisted the innuendo of the Jorougumo—this should be easy. He tries not to show it, but he's discomfited. She must be teasing him. He tries not to stare directly at her.

He knows he failed to hide his discomfort when Yuuko laughs, all capricious delight—no, nothing has changed. Then she relaxes. "Now what did you promise me?" she prods, lazily, like a sun-warmed cat.

Only Watanuki's lips move, as he watches her. "To wait for you..."

"Though it was kind and really very sweet of you, I did not ask you to," Yuuko reminds him. "So what else?"

"...Not to make you cry." That makes him anxious.  _But what could make you cry, Yuuko-san?_

"Good boy." For a second, Yuuko's fingertips lightly touch his forehead, resting there; she smooths his sweaty, stringy hair, what little of it isn't plastered flat to his scalp. "It was not enough to tell you by messenger. You needed the reminder. Your life may be a mess, but you haven't lost sight of all the pieces yet, so long as you are determined to live. No regrets. For as long as you are resolved to wait, I will be also be waiting. It won't be forever."

"Yuuko-san, will you..."

"Be the same, when I return? No, I won't." She smiles briefly. "I am almost whole, now. Almost awake. But all things must change." She looks sad, for the first time. "You should know that. It was your wish." She presses one last kiss to his forehead, and Watanuki gets a lump in his throat.

"I missed you. I needed you..."

"Ah, but you had been doing so  _well_  for yourself without me until Doumeki left! Which brings me to wonder:  _why_ do you need  _me_ , hmm? And do you really need me any longer? Not that I mind coming back for you, of course—who could resist the chance to see your adorable antics, Watanuki-kun? But that is the question you really must answer for yourself."

"Will this change? Will it be better?"

Rather than answer, she sits up and looks into his eyes, her own mauve ones equally bright and enigmatic. She neither frowns nor smiles; her flat, depthless eyes hold neither hope nor doubt in the future—it will simply  _be._ She seems to be floating away—slowly at first, but Watanuki soon becomes sure—and she lifts her hand, as if in goodbye, and then she fades. The butterfly dress is the last thing of hers to melt away.

_It already is. It already has. That you may grant my true wish..._

There is no room to cry.

He doesn't know if he really spoke to  _her._  She hasn't told him much more than he already knew. He doesn't know if he actually spoke to Doumeki, either. But it doesn't really matter. He wanted to see her, just for an instant, and even if this is a fever dream and not real, he was granted a part of his wish. To help him go on.


	6. Smoke

Yuuko's smoke has not completely dissipated by the time Haruka arrives. He comes in from the porch—they always meet on the porch—and steps inside Watanuki's room. This must be the first time he has come to Watanuki's private space, not taken Watanuki "outside" in his dreams, so to speak.

Watanuki wonders what it could mean, except he's sick and stuck here, and having a conversation anywhere else right now simply doesn't make sense.

"Why are you here?" Watanuki says sleepily.

"I heard you met Yuuko. And Doumeki sends his love. He's still recollecting his spirit, on the other side..."

"Like Yuuko-san?"

"Aye."

Part of what Haruka said was late in dawning. "Doumeki sends his...love?" Watanuki makes out, gasping, as if a bucket of ice water had just been upended over his head.

"Yes, of course." Haruka smiles.

Haruka said "of course," as if Watanuki had already known. Even if he _had_ known, if he always suspected, it feels like an entirely new revelation, coming from Haruka, whose words cannot be denied.

 _Feelings_ slam into Watanuki's chest where Doumeki reached in to kickstart his beating heart, the heart that is now writhing inside of him. His hand clenches over the spot, as if by keeping his hand there, he could contain himself. He wonders distractedly what colors his skin must be turning, moment by moment. Grey-blue for shock, pale yellow for hope...white for hot, sharp pain, orange for grief, inflamed red for anger, green-yellow-brown for guilt, watered milk for inadequacy...pink for embarrassment, light purple for shame, bruise blue for the dull hurt, provoked, for the ache of missing, and wanting, and not having...

"I...I worried him, I guess," Watanuki admits weakly, a little awkwardly. There is no expressing what he actually feels. What else could he say?

Such honesty from a Doumeki comes only from beyond the grave, beyond fear, beyond regret: now all that is left is make up for lost time and voicing the words left unsaid, clarifying a matter that has already met its end. What is the  _use_ in Doumeki telling him now, when there is nothing Watanuki can do?

Haruka nods. It's one of the best things about Haruka, in Watanuki's opinion, that he never judges. "Will you permit me to smoke?" Haruka asks, since they are inside the house for once.

Watanuki decides it doesn't matter. It's the dream-space after all. And it seems hypocritical to forbid it since both he and Yuuko smoked the opium pipe inside so often. So he waves his hand and Haruka lights up his cigarette. Haruka takes one long drag on the cigarette and now he seems ready to talk.

They don't, though. Not for a while.

"It's not that I wanted to. Worry him, I mean. I didn't think he would...care." Looking at the ground, Watanuki is aware of how foolish that sounds now. Just because Doumeki died didn't mean... He should have known better. Watanuki looked up at Haruka. "I was so angry and upset at him, Haruka-san. I've never been that...that way with anyone before, not for real."

Haruka breathes in, breathes out the smoke. "It was bound to to be someday. Happens to most everyone, at some point in their lives." He lifts the cigarette to his lips again, and the embers at the tip flare orange.

"I suppose. But we didn't even fight properly." Watanuki makes a sound that could have been either a laugh or a sob. "I think...I think maybe he wanted one. At the end. But I couldn't even tell him what I felt. I couldn't process it. I couldn't mindlessly rage at him. Even if I had told him everything, it was too late. I couldn't change what he was going to do."

"No, it was too late for that," Haruka agreed.

"And then." Watanuki swallowed. "He said he wasn't leaving me alone, but that had to be a lie. You can't come back from the dead! What was he thinking of? I can't...I can't... _How_ can he expect me to just go on without him, as if nothing was wrong, knowing what he did to himself?"

Haruka lets out a soft sigh. "He doesn't," said Haruka, lowering the cigarette. "He doesn't expect. He just had to hope. To trust..." Haruka casts a knowing, sad look at Watanuki, and continues. "He couldn't wait any longer for you to earn your freedom; he was an old man by then. In a few years he knew he was going to die in good time. And you were young. He could have died and never seen you freed."

"Then what...what was he _trying_ to do?"

"To make another way." There is only the sound of soft burning, the sound of smoke rising, of drawn breath.

Watanuki lifts his head to speak again. "Yuuko said she wasn't coming back quite the same."

Haruka nods. "That is correct. Neither is Doumeki."

Watanuki blinks. " _What_?"

"That time, what my taciturn, tactless grandson was trying to tell you," said Haruka, dryly, "When you saw him last, was that he was coming back for you when he could be reincarnated at the earliest opportunity. That _is_ allowed, within the rules. He really died."

"...Oh."

Haruka looks a trifle wry. "Yes. He's very devoted. Delightful, isn't he?"

"That's the least of his—" Watanuki covers his temples with his hands and groans aloud with frustration. "Haruka-san...!"

"Hurry up and spit out your thoughts before they give birth." Haruka's expression does not even twitch. He _would_ be able to say that with a straight face... But it's so unusual to hear him joke like that. It sounds like something Yuuko would say.

Watanuki pinches the bridge of his nose, looking as if he could explode.

Haruka finally lets a smidgen of a smirk through his solemn expression, and then suddenly he's chuckling to himself in that infuriating Doumeki way. Haruka shakes his head to dispel the last remnants of his mirth. "Ah, well. Never mind." Haruka waves one hand. "You were saying?"

"Right...so. Anyway, so Yuuko's coming back, but she said that I should ask myself why I needed her."

"You have not asked the question to yourself?" Haruka said with apparent surprise.

Watanuki shook his head. "At first I just needed her. When I made the wish, I mean. It hurt so much for the very people whose lives she touched, whose lives she changed, for them not to remember her. It was so unfair. I didn't want her to go, I wasn't ready for her to go. But after a while, I just did what I had to. I couldn't think about other things. I was just desperate. I wanted her because... I wanted her because..." Watanuki spread his hands, clenched them into fists. His throat had almost choked closed again.  _I don't know._

Haruka gazes at him as if from a distance, neutral again. "Then what do you miss?"

Watanuki shut his eyes, willing himself to go on. "Everything. Even her teasing and the drinking and her selfish requests and how—how she took care of me, more than anyone else I ever met. She sent me on dangerous missions, sure, but that was part of my wish, and she was the shopkeeper, and the truth was that I had always been in danger, all my life, and the difference was only that I chose to brave the danger instead of enduring it. And she knew that. But she was my support, when I returned from every mission, and she took care of me. Gave me advice, sometimes, when she was kind, c-comforted me, even. I never doubted her. I knew that what she wanted...deep down...was for me to be safe, and whole, above all, despite everything." Watanuki stopped.

"You wanted a mother," said Haruka.

Watanuki's eyes flew open.

"It was what she was," said Haruka, looking tired. "Your guardian. She was the reason you survived, when she took your memories of your parents, of your former life, all those years ago. And to the degree that it was her fault, she felt responsible for you."

"I _still_ need her," Watanuki said, insistent.

Haruka nods. "But not that way. Those times is over."

"Then what is she to me?"

_That is the question. It is up to you to decide, or discover, the answer._

Haruka half-smiles, leans forward and breaths once more on the cigarette. The ember burns, another plume of smoke rises to join the cloud around them. He stands and opens the  _shoji_  that leads to the porch, and steps outside. The presence of Haruka fades into the smoke, into the scent of the tobacco, and then the wind takes him and the smoke and the heat and warmth of the hearth away.

_Goodbye, Haruka..._

This time, with no one to watch and no one to hear, Watanuki cries.


	7. Dreaming Sakura

When next he opens his eyes, he is lying under a sakura tree in the dark night, tucked among its roots, staring up the expanse of its large, rippling trunk. For some reason, he is being held fast, and perfectly still. He does not fight the feeling.

The highest branches of the tree rustle and jostle. Even on the ground, he feels a small, gentle breeze pass over his face. A slight form jumps from the crotch of one of the thicker tree limbs, and floats to the ground. Her outfit flares like wings behind her, and the bangles around her wrists jangle like bells. She has light reddish hair. Sakura.

She pivots on her heel to face him, and he can see that her eyes are filled with dismay. "What are you doing here? Go back!" she says, upset.

"This is the land of dreams again," Watanuki murmurs. "I don't know how I got here. I can't..."

"Yes," says Sakura, coming closer.

Watanuki lets his eyes flutter shut, open...and shut...

"The tree is feeding on your body," Sakura whispers.

Watanuki tries to draw breath and he gasps, and the sound rips out, torn. Now he can feel it. The root that has attached itself to his spine, and spread throughout his torso, so he cannot move. As long as he does not move, there is no pain. He could be attached like this and still live for a long time—death would be painfully slow.

"Come, we must go. This is the dream of the Sakurazukamori," Sakura explains. "The assassin... It is near the heart of dreams. It is a nightmare dream that never ends, and it was formed long, long ago, and it is more self-aware than most. Surely you know of him."

Watanuki nods, tired. "Yes, I do. Know of him...I have never met him, however. So much has happened in Tokyo..."

She is visibly anxious. "You must get out of here. If you attract the assassin's attention, he will hunt you down to end your pain, and you will never be free of him. He is young, this one. You must beware. He hasn't yet found his quarry—"

" _I_ am not his victim." Watanuki coughs wetly.

"No, but your body is weak and you are vulnerable, and so you were drawn here," says Sakura. She kneels, bends down to him, and takes both of Watanuki's hands in hers. "It is wise not to tempt fate. If you die here, you will die for real. You know this. You ended up here because you lost control of your dreams." Her words, slightly rushed and urgent and breathless, says _this is very important._  "Watanuki, I would like you to concentrate for me."

He closes his eyes. "Anything, Sakura."

"Good...I want you to imagine a place where you can lie down in safety. A warm, safe place, where you are at peace."

"Yes," Watanuki croaks, and he feels lighter, feels as if he is just about to slip away and disappear—to anywhere—to slip _into another place_. Suddenly, it clicks.

"Dream it!" she orders, and almost despite himself, Watanuki's dream slips and slides off to the side, as if sheared by a knife— and it morphs—

* * *

He's lying in the Doumeki pond, face up and floating. He can move. He glances to the sides, raises his arms experimentally, and starts to sink. His head ducks under the water; he blinks, watches the play of light from below, and then reality returns, and he begins to thrash: his head needs to be  _above the water_ —

But this is not a drowning dream, and the pond is not that deep. Sakura, who was next to him the whole time, simply siezes his wrist and tows him to the shore, where lifts herself up so she is sitting out of the water. Watanuki gives up and moving and simply floats, with her hand gripping his wrist for ballast, just in case he slips again. It was just a little scare. It's not long before he gets his breath back.

"If that was the Sakurazukamori's dream, why were you there?" Watanuki asks curiously.

"It's because of my name. The association is strong, so I always begin there when I journey through dreams...I always have. It is not always a nightmare tree. When it flourishes in its life aspect, it is really quite lovely. But death is another outcome, and in times of ill omen, it reflects that," explains Sakura. "You were trying to find me..."

"I didn't know," says Watanuki.

"It was not intentional, then. Your soul led you there, to me; your circumstances were the catalyst that infected the dream. If that was so, then I am forced to conclude that all is not well with you."

"Sakura..."

"Oh, Watanuki,  _listen_! You gave me advice in a dream once—let me do what I can for you. Anyway, you are in much more need of it." She squeezes his wrist slightly and smiles at him. "Are you sure you don't want to sit beside me?"

Watanuki shakes his head. "No." But he smiles back. He feels strangely relaxed.

Sakura does not press him. She looks out over the quiet, clear pond. "The water here is strangely pure," Sakura ventures, after a time. "Maybe it is good for you. But I thought I told you to go somewhere warm."

"It is, sort of," Watanuki says. "My skin is used to it. Here, my heart is warm....I did what you said, but actually I am not sure why I came here. This pond belongs...belonged to a friend of mine."

"He must a good friend then," says Sakura. "If this is his place...are you sure he's not around here somewhere?"

"I don't know. He died." The surface of the pond shivers. Watanuki rides the slight ripple, feeling uneasy. He can't say for sure, and that ambiguity troubles him.

"I see." Sakura doesn't reply for a some time while she thinks. "Everything means something in dreams," she tells him finally.

"Everything?" Watanuki says.

"Yes."

"Then...what about _this_?"

"You came to his pond because you miss him," Sakura says slowly. "He made you feel safe and at peace, just like I feelingse I told you to search for. Even though he's not here, you wanted the reminder of his presence. Just like how I'm holding your wrist....he was your anchor. You don't have one anymore. You don't want another one—you want _him_. That's why you won't sit here with me. You have to float on your own. That makes you afraid. Now that everything is uncertain, you have lost the courage to move on your own." She stops.

"Yes," says Watanuki.

"I'm sorry," says Sakura. "I wasn't of much help."

"It's fine," says Watanuki, and he floats. "I think...I think I loved him."

"I'm sorry," says Sakura, even more softly.

"I don't know if I want to go forward," says Watanuki.

She tightens her grip on his wrist. "You _must_."

"I don't want to be alone."

"You aren't," she says. "We are always thinking of you. Talk to us! Please try."

"I know. I will," Watanuki promises, suddenly wan and tired. "I know, and I've already decided. I just..."

 _He doesn't have much time left here._ In a burst of inspiration, she raises his hand from the water and kisses it. "Thank you." If she treats it like a promise, maybe he will come to see it as one...

"I feel heavy." Watanuki's eyelids slide shut.

"Your body is calling you," she murmurs. "Don't struggle."

His face scrunches as he struggles to say, "I just have to move forward, and—"

"Watanuki!" she shouts, and

—he's gone.

Sakura touches the water as its rushes to fill the space that he left it—it slaps her hand, with force. Substance. If nothing else, Watanuki is convinced he is still alive. She climbs out of the pond, closes her eyes and summons her power. When her eyelids lift again, she is home with Syaoran, sitting on her throne.

There are tears spilling over her cheeks.

Syaoran touches them and says, "How is he?"

Sakura turns her eyes to him and embraces him around the neck. "I don't know, my love. I don't know."

"Will he get through it?"

"He says he will."

"Then he'll make it," says Syaoran, and he kisses her.

But as close as they are, Watanuki's brand of determination isn't anything like Syaoran's bleak, obsessive single-mindedness. Syaoran does not know anything of what Watanuki is suffering: he would never think to suspect. Would Watanuki even tell him? Sakura wonders. "We should call him soon," she says. "He needs us—"

"I will," Syaoran promises her, serious.

"Thank you," she sighs. "I worry."

"You usually have a reason," says Syaoran, looking unconcerned. "It'll work out."

Sakura forces herself to laugh. Wistfully, she confides, "I wish I had your faith."

"It's not faith," says Syaoran slowly. "Not trust. It's expectation. Because I cannot bear the thought of any other outcome—" he breaks away from her abruptly, and leaves her and the throne room. She lets him go, almost wishing that she hadn't pushed him. These days, Syaoran needs a lot of time to think for himself.

She knows what he's thinking about: all the times he pushed forward, not knowing the outcome, refusing to think about any other outcome awaiting him in his future than basic success. Refusing to think too deeply on the price to strive towards what he must, yet taking responsibility and bearing the guilt for his selfishness anyway. It is a kind of denial. At times when she was at stake, times when they were all trapped together, with no way out, times when they sacrificed time, people, _worlds_  and possibilities to get to the future they have now. He does care. Too much, sometimes; she knows that, too.


	8. Wakefulness

Watanuki opens his eyes, again, and finds himself staring at the round lamp above his bed. So round. A hollow circle. It's burning into his cornea. He winces and looks away, feeling as if he had been in danger of becoming entranced. The vague image of the lamp in bright yellow-green and pink and orange jumps irritatingly from place to place with his eye movements. He tries not to focus on it.

Two blurry figures are hunched over a low table in a corner, talking in low voices. One with long blue hair is dressed in a traditional blue kimono, and the other has curly twists of red hair in a puffy red dress. He makes a movement under the covers, trying to get comfortable, and they both turn to look at him. The girl with the long blue hair gets up and walks over to his side. Because he doesn't have his glasses on, she looks too blurry at first, but when she gets close enough, he can see enough of her features to know it's the Zashiki-Warashi. So the other must be the Ame-Warashi.

The Zashiki-Warashi kneels at his side. "How are you?" she asks.

Watanuki clears his throat and tries to croak, but nothing comes through. He does roll over a bit, to lie on his side instead of his back. Everything feels sore. He rubs his throat.

The Zashiki-Warashi fetches tea warm enough to steam but not to burn. She waits as he pulls himself into a sitting position, then puts the cup in his hand. Watanuki drinks it.

"Why is Ame-Warashi here?" Watanuki whispers, as the Zashiki-Warashi takes his cup.

"She was worried about me. She was also worried about you. When she heard the news she became very angry. Do you want more?"

"Yes," he says.

The Zashiki-Warashi pours another cup, and Watanuki takes it.

"The Ame-Warashi fetched  _kitsune_  oden for us last night," the Zashiki Warashi murmurs. "There is still some left, if you are up to it. She said the young fox was worried about you."

Watanuki nods, and says nothing. A headache has begun.

"I must go back to the mountain soon. So she asked him to care for you."

"And then?" Watanuki swills the tea in the cup.

"He agreed," replies the Zashiki-Warashi. "He will take over tomorrow."

"I see. However shall I repay you and the Ame-Warashi?" He drinks.

Eyes level, she looks at him for a long moment—unusually so. "Get well," she says, finally.

"I see." Watanuki closes his eyes. "That's the right price, isn't it..." The Zashiki-Warashi takes his cup. Watanuki lies down, and she tugs the blankets back over him.

There's a knocking at the door.

"That will surely be the  _kitsune_ ," says the Zashiki-Warashi, and gets up to open it. She is right.

She leads the fox to Watanuki, and the two look at each other.

The Zashiki-Warashi bows once, and excuses herself. The Ame-Warashi rouses herself from her post, and links arms with the Zashiki-Warashi. "We shall meet again, Watanuki," she says, snapping open her umbrella with angry, impatient vigor, and points to the empty doorway. Together the Ame-Warashi and the Zashiki Warashi whoosh out the door and into the sky, and they are gone.

The fox closes the door.

"It is good to see you again, my friend," he says mildly.

A tiny ache opens in Watanuki's chest. The fox, now grown, really does look—and act—like his father. Except for the lack of glasses. "You too," says Watanuki hoarsely.

The fox seats himself in a chair and curls up in it. "How strange that we almost did not. Humans are such curious creatures."

Watanuki isn't sure, but he thinks the fox's tone was that of gentle reproof. He sighs. "It is probably my fault. I wasn't careful."

The fox switches his tail. "Perhaps." He does not seem interested in assigning blame; he switches his attention elsewhere.

Even so, Watanuki has a funny feeling that the fox knows more about him than he is saying. "I'm sorry."

The fox's ears swivel. "Why do you apologize to  _me?_  I was happy to be called to help a friend in need," says the fox, stretching out languorously. "Though you have strange messengers."

He didn't send them. Somehow this makes him feel worse. Watanuki shakes his head. "Never mind."

The conversation lapses, and the shadows lengthen.

Watanuki can feel the headache wrapping itself around him, enclosing his mind in what could be bubblewrap. He moves carefully, making himself comfortable, and finally the stagnance begins to weigh down, and he becomes heavier, and heavier, and finally thought goes away and he sleeps.


	9. Infinite Eternity

He is tall; in this neighborhood, it makes him self-conscious. His dusk shadow stretches out in front of him, thin, dark, and sinister. He hunches forward in a brown suit that weighs heavy on his shoulders, and is holding a briefcase in his right hand; in his left is a  _furoshiki_  holding a long, elegant bottle of  _sake_. His long, slow strides eat up the ground and his eyes stay down, scanning the road in front of him as he glides over the path of flattened brown grass he has transpassed so many times that he has memorized it. Bees and butterflies dart in and out of the summer undergrowth to his sides. They do not concern him, but he watches for spiders and their silken webs. He does not trust them.

 _There_  it is, the puddle clear as a glass mirror, the one that never seemed to evaporate even in the hot summer, the uncanny marker of the gate only those in need of it could see. He steps over it, and stops, regarding the black, twisted cast iron gate. He pushes, and the gate creaks open. He walks down the path between the two halves of the front garden to the front porch and looks up into the dark shape of the house adorned by eccentric crescent moons. Suddenly his faithless fingers weaken and he drops the briefcase to thud at his feet as he stares into the brown shadows.

He leaves it there, and mounts the steps, almost unwillingly, almost despite himself, but he is compelled to move into those shadows and he ascends. He slides the  _shoji_  apart and walks inside, takes off his shoes, and the  _genkan_ recedes behind him and shop swallows him into itself.

Inside, the house is constructed of panels of dark brown lacquered wood on the floor and the walls and the ceiling, a staining liquid darkness like ink or tar. The only light in the house is the pure white of the doors, somehow illuminated. He walks. He walks between doors and more doors frantically looking of something—no,  _someone_ —and there are miles and miles of floorboards, floors and rooms going up, down, left, right, and backwards, each door turned impossibly in on other rooms and spaces he has already been in spirals never ending. The house muffles the sound of footsteps, sweeps away whatever moisture he tracks across the floor. The clocks on the walls are frozen in time. Pictures of faces that seem eerily familiar line the walls, but with sadness he doesn't recognize any of them. They are only people he should know, and doesn't, an aching reminder that something missing inside him and he hasn't found it yet. He should have brought thread or perhaps a piece of bread to leave breadcrumbs with, but he hasn't either, and he has no time.

The house creaks and his panic mounts. He is running out of time. He has to get out, before it takes him, too. He remembers—his mission. He has to find  _him_.

He opens windows framed by white curtains, slides away the translucent paper doors, peeks through and shuts them. He sprints down the halls, trots down the stairs, leans over the balconies searching for  _his face_  until he is dizzy. He almost walks into a mirror once before he realizes that it reflects him; confused, not realizing at first what it was, he wondered if he could see  _that person_ in it and stared until he became mesmerized. But there wasn't, and he broke the stare, shuddering, and kept searching.

Where was  _he_?  _That person_  doesn't belong here any more than he does. He must find him, save  _him._  But where should he go to seek  _him_?  _He_ is never here. He has been here, oh so many times before, he knows, and has never found  _him_. Why isn't  _he_  here?  _Why_?

At last he sinks to his knees and the shop shrinks and restructures itself around him. He crawls forward, and the last door leads into the kitchen, where he stands and wearily removes the _furoshiki._ Then he leaves the sake on the counter. An offering. He can smell the last meal that was made here, and it makes him hungry and oddly nostalgic. It welcomes him back, makes him want to stay. But he cannot eat here: the occupant of this place is gone, and this place wants to trap him, to possess him and make itself complete. It makes him want to weep, for this time among all the other times that he cannot remember he has failed to find  _him_. Failed to save  _him_ , the one who was lost. And it is his duty to find  _him_  and he has no idea what to do.

For now, he leaves, as he has always done once the house has rejected him. He slides open the door out of the kitchen onto the outside porch, and follows the veranda around the house to his shoes set out on the porch, which he collects and puts on again. He picks up his briefcase and looks back at the house one last time. It is shrunken, faded, wistful, but it is firmly set against his entrance as he knew it would be. He leaves.

It is night now, a deep blue shot with starlight. He looks up through the gaps in the blue-green leaves of the garden trees, and witnesses the steel skyscrapers striving against the celestial beauty of the night, piercing the skyline in the distance and towering over the humble garden nearby impassively. As he watches the sheer cliff faces of them curve over the organic space sharply, possessively, crushing it. He stops before he reaches the gate, overwhelmed with horror mixed with awe and stricken with sudden, unbearable sadness. Around him, the garden begins to shrivel, die, burned by the death touch of ice and winter. The insects cease, and crumple into the red dirt. Soon enough, all that is left of the summer magnificence is soft reddish soil.

Unable to go on, he puts his hands on his knees and leans there, mind spinning.  _Get a grip._ His empty thoughts whirl but finally they settle into a pattern, into eerie calmness, and he straightens again.

He turns and there is the house again, but he is different. The briefcase is still in his hand, but the  _furoshiki_  is gone, and so is the brown suit he had worn, revealing the white collared shirt underneath. The house stays there, cold and still and silvery-blue, lonely. Now it needs him.

He runs down to the house and as he does the dawn breaks, and it is daylight again; a red flush peeks over the horizon. Somewhere inside he knows it is the first sign of the spring to come. And at once he knows he can't give up now. It is now or never. He runs up the steps and smashes smack into the  _shoji,_ trying to get inside, and failing that, to see through, to see anything. It is locked. Reeling back on his heels, he rings the doorbell. If only  _he_ would come to answer it! The door opens—

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was listening to "Windmills of Your Mind" (the Thomas Crowne affair version sung by Noel Harrison) while writing this. It really inspired it. Which may explain some things. Or not. All I know is that I wouldn't have been able to write the next two chapters without this bizarre interlude.


	10. Left and Gone

_The door opens—_

Watanuki wakes with a start, drenched in sweat.

The fox twitches in his chair and opens his eyes. The black pupils set by a warm amber-brown are elliptical, sharp and pointed. "Shopkeeper, what did you dream?"

"It was this shop," Watanuki whispers. "I was someone else—someone—familiar. I don't remember. I never got a good glimpse of his face. And he—he was searching me for me—he needed to, so badly, he thought I was lost—"

The fox pulls its lips into a vulpine grin, tucks in its feet, and pins him with a fixed stare. Watanuki stops talking, and gulps.

"Dreams, they say, may reveal truth," says the fox. "Do you remember your gift to me?"

"The arrow," Watanuki says slowly, thinking back. "I picked it up in a dream."

The fox nods.

"So I really  _am_  lost?"

The fox rolls his neck in a full circle, which has the same effect as eye-rolling in humans, and lolls out his tongue.  _Do I_ really _have to answer that._ "If you say so. In some way. Who was searching for you?" the fox asks instead.

"It…it felt like Doumeki. Doumeki Shizuka. Do you remember him? But that shouldn't be possible." Watanuki tries to think.

The fox chuckles.

Watanuki's eyes slide over to him and he grumbles, "Why am I even  _asking_  these questions, I'm the shopkeeper..."

And the fox outright laughs, which Watanuki was half afraid he would do.

"But he's  _dead_!"

Sobering, the fox says, "All the more reason to be dreaming."

"Why do you know so much about it?" Watanuki asks curiously.

" _Kitsune_  are masters of illusion. Dreams are natural illusions, so we study them, and that is why we know much about them. The most powerful  _kitsune_  can create an illusion one step stronger than dream, one that can mimic one of the five senses perfectly." He wrinkles his nose. "The rest of us simply know how to manipulate with small, quick, distracting spells the target won't think to question. We learn how others think."

"I see."

"Would you be up for breakfast?" asks the fox. "You seem better."

Watanuki rubs his neck, which is still slightly damp. Nevertheless, he does seem to have more energy. "Yes, I think so." He's not exactly hungry, but the thought of solid food doesn't seem repellent. He slides out of the blankets, and gets to his feet gingerly.

So far so good.

He doesn't walk very far, just to kitchen where there's a table where he can sit down. The fox cooks something, and Watanuki woozily traces the wood grains in the table, holding his forehead.

Suddenly, a flicker from out of the corner of his eye makes him turn his head, and he squints and glimpses a bit of pink and blue—Maru and Moro are in the corner... He wishes he could put on his glasses.

Frowning, it finally occurs to him to wonder where Mokona went off to.

"Mokona!" he calls, softly. "Mokona!"

A little furry black thing hops out from some shadow created by Maru and Moro's slumped forms, and leaps straight into Watanuki's arms, and immediately starts shivering. Mokona.

"Oohf!" He stops, surprised when she doesn't say anything, and it dawns on him that something serious has happened. "Mokona…" Watanuki murmurs, perplexed, and holds a little more tightly.

She turns in his arms, and keens. Watanuki strokes her velvet black rabbit ears.

"Shhh, shh. Mokona, I'm better now. I promise I'm better now, what's wrong?"

"Watanuki," she moans softly. "Watanuki..."

"Mokona, what is it?"

In misery, she whispers, "Maru and Moro…"

Watanuki looks up. "I can see them over there, sort of." He squints. "Could you fetch me my glasses?"

Mokona shakes her head and burrows into the crook of his arm, folding her ears back. "They're gone," she mumbles. "Just shells now."

"Are you sure they're not just sleeping normally?" Watanuki asks, with trepidation now.

"No. Crumbling. Dust. Shells. Bodies cold, stiff. Spirits gone."

"Will they come back?"

"I don't know, Watanuki." Now Mokona sounds tired. "The last of Yuuko's power has completely gone from this place. Everything left of her has been sustained by your magic for these last three years. So when you got sick..."

"They died." Watanuki feels numb, and cold. His grip on Mokona slackens slightly.

"Watanuki! Watanuki!"

"Unn _ngh_." Watanuki's eyes focus on Mokona again.

"Watanuki, remember. They're not real. Artificial. Remember? They're just…not breathing." She sniffles. "The contract broke, and the spirits escaped. Now the girls are like dolls again. As they always were. Dolls."

"Mokona, I don't know how to get them back," Watanuki says softly.

Mokona makes another low, guilty miserable sound. "I know."

"Will…we...be ok _ay_?" Watanuki asks, tentatively, including them both in the statement.

She shudders; for a while her words are unintelligible, and she begins to cry again. Sometimes he can hear her repeating, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry…" And after some minutes of utter incomprehension, finally Watanuki realizes what she's apologizing for, that it's because she thinks she should remember how Yuuko made the girls, or how to get them back, but she doesn't. It's gone. She thinks it is her fault that the knowledge was completely lost.

Then he finds the words to tell her, "It's not your fault. It's mine. They were your companions, and the fault was mine. Please, Mokona, it's going to be alright. It's going to be fine. I'll be okay, I promise. I promise. I won't leave you, I promise. I will be strong. I'm sorry I scared you. So  _sorry_. Mokona, I  _promise_. I'll never leave you. We'll be okay." The apology becomes a whisper, becomes a croon, and he doesn't stop stroking her until she stops shaking.

The fox comes then, with the food cooked. "Why is the Mokona upset?" he asks, nodding to the black furry bunny-eared lump in Watanuki's arms. He puts the food on the table.

"My predecessor, Yuuko, animated some dolls," Watanuki explains, feeling suddenly exhausted. "They were my helpers. The spell came off sometime the day before yesterday or last night, and Mokona discovered them. If you don't mind, could you get me my glasses? I just realized I can't see anything."

"Ah, the shells in the hallway," says the fox in understanding. "I didn't remember them. They had the smell of old magic. Give me just a moment." He fetches Watanuki's glasses and hands them to him.

Watanuki puts them on briefly, and looks in the right direction. He takes them off again, folds them and places them on the table, and wipes his eyes. "That will be all, thank you," he says. "I'll be back to bed in just a moment, after I eat…"

"Take your time," says the fox. He discreetly returns to the inner kitchen to brew tea.

Watanuki stares at the nearest blank wall until his eyes water. The image of the girls is floats there, blue and pink holding hands, the hands they clasped whenever they were anxious or worried. Moro slumped against Maru, forehead against forehead, and both of them bonelessly slumped against the wall, legs curled under them, a picture of sweet innocence. They were only dolls, and as dolls they will never be girls again. Their perpetual childhood was a limited and stunted life, but it had been something still. They had never grown up, would never have grown up even if they yet lived, but once they had been…his. His to care for. And now they were gone.

After that, the absence begins to hurt.

In hurting, he begins to feel.


	11. Awaited

The fox leaves the next day, when Watanuki's fevered dizziness has faded. Watanuki goes through the motions at first, but as soon as he can manage it he struggles to put renewed effort into his life.

The snow clears away, but the clouds do not. The weather stays the same for a very long time, except for brief spells when it rains.

He begins taking customers again, one, two at a time. He collects the groceries left at his door by Doumeki's remaining family. He cooks for himself. He learns to have deep conversations with Mokona, who is lonely without the girls, and she becomes his constant companion since the pipe fox has been hibernating since the start of the unnatural winter.

It begins to dawn on him that perhaps the summer had come, but that for some reason he was not able to accept it, and he had wiped away those memories….because he was waiting for something.

Besides, before the summer came the spring, which meant the  _sakura_ season, which meant his birthday. Remembering his birthday reminded him of Doumeki's absence. Remembering Doumeki's absence reminded him how alone he was. And he didn't want to remember.

Watanuki stops checking the nonsensical calendar. He stops thinking of the past at all.

* * *

He dreams of the shop again with the wooden floors and side panels and ceiling lacquered such deep brown, almost a liquid ink black, that boxes him in a maze. It's a dream he's had before, many, many times, and willfully forgotten.

Now he almost remembers it  _happening_ , but can't remember  _why_.

* * *

Watanuki wakes to knocking at the door and realizes it's the crack of dawn. He gets out of bed to answer the door, re-tucking the folds of his kimono as he goes. He reaches the  _genkan_ and kicks sandals aside, wrenches the  _shoji_  apart, and opens his mouth to give the random customer a loud, angry piece of his mind—

It is  _him._

The briefcase slips out of the boy's grasp and thuds to the floor. Relief, happiness flow in and out with each stuttered breath. He can barely get the words out, bowing jerkily. "Wata—Watanuki—"

Watanuki stares at him in shock.

The boy claps a hand over his mouth. "Ah—ahm—I'm sorry! I'm really sorry, I didn't mean to say that, I mean I apologize, I don't know what to call you!" He looks nervous. "Sir," the boy adds, and bows once more.  _The boy who looks exactly like Doumeki Shizuka at age fifteen._  "I—uh—I'm sorry I came this early. I guess that was kinda weird. I, uh, I heard you knew my great-grandfather..."

Watanuki stares at him, ever so slightly amused by the boy's anxious, hasty apology but also troubled. For a moment he is simply at a total loss for words, and he doesn't know what to say, not at all.

"C-come in," Watanuki stutters, backing up; only when the new Doumeki moves to step forward, he belatedly shuffles to the side. The boy smiles very slightly, shy, and steps inside. He shucks his shoes, and Watanuki shuts the door dazedly. "What's your name?" he asks.

"Doumeki Shizuka," the boy says in a small voice.

Despite himself, he rocks back on his heels. " _What?_ " Watanuki says faintly. The faint echo of Yuuko's voice comes to his mind:  _n_ _ames have power._

"Doumeki Shizuka, I said," says the new Doumeki once again, confused but unconcerned. "I know it's a girl's name, but I'm named after—"

"Yes, I know. How did you…find me?" asks Watanuki.

The boy freezes.

"It's all right. Was it a dream?"

The boy nods, slowly.

"I see. I had one too."

The boy looks ever so slightly perplexed.

_Why is it so easy to read the boy's expressions on Doumeki's face?_

It  _hurts_.

"Look…Shizuka-kun," Watanuki hazards, because he isn't sure whether it's appropriate at this stage but he sure isn't going to call the boy  _Doumeki_  and confuse himself as to what is real and what is not if he can help it, and anyway the boy called him  _Watanuki_  without the honorific at first sight so turnabout is fair play. "I don't know what your family told you, but there's some things you've got to know about me…" the words coming out of his mouth are all strained and tense, but he doesn't know how to stop it. This— _him_ —the resemblance—is  _freaking him out_.

"They didn't tell me much because they didn't want me to go searching for you," Shizuka answers.

Watanuki swallows. "About what I expected, seeing as Doumeki's sons and daughters didn't like me much. They thought…" He thinks better of it. "No, never mind. …Are you sure it's all right to see me?" He ushers Shizuka to the dining table, and makes him sit down. Then he sits down across from him, as if Shizuka is his customer. Then he remembers; Shizuka  _is_  a customer, he wouldn't have been able to come if he didn't have a wish...

"That's why I came at the crack of dawn," Shizuka says, slightly annoyed. "I mean, I wake up at that early naturally, but it made sense to do it then because I couldn't let them know and I had to do this for myself."

Watanuki smiles weakly. "I see. What else do you know, then?"

"I know you're practically immortal. That you grant wishes." Shizuka shrugs. "That you knew my great-grandfather."

Watanuki stares into space, trying desperately not to cry.

"Would you prefer it if I called you Watanuki-sama?" Shizuka offers, all in innocence.

Watanuki is so surprised and shocked by the question that he has to laugh. And keeps laughing. Until finally he wheezes for breath, pounding the table. Shizuka clams up, shrinking in his seat a little. He's shy. Watanuki straightens, clearing his throat. He didn't mean to make the boy nervous, but since he already had he recklessly supposes that he might as well go all the way. "May I call you Shizuka?" Watanuki wonders out loud, in return.

Shizuka bites his lip. "Um—"

No, it's a bad idea. Of course not. His family will have told him things— "You look so like your great-grandfather, to me," Watanuki explains ruefully, "that I have a hard time telling the difference between you in my mind. You look exactly like he did at age fifteen. So just to cement the difference between you—"

"Oh. That's alright, then, but...didn't you call my great-grandfather by his first name?"

Watanuki's laugh flutters briefly. "Oh, no. I could never! He was a Doumeki. Through and through. He might as well have been a rock. 'Quiet' or 'peaceful' just wasn't the right way to describe him. He was too stiff." He slides his eyes over to meet the boy's, Shizuka's, speculatively. "It may describe you better, though. You're less rude." He smiles slightly. It is even true. Shizuka's first impression had been rude, but  _he_ , at least, had the grace to apologize. "But if you must know, we didn't like each other very much at first. By the time we became good friends...well. I was already calling him Doumeki, and Doumeki never asked me to call him otherwise, so I never took the next step. He never asked to call me by my first name, either." He pauses. How much more should he say? "It happens more often than you'd think. Can you think of calling your teachers anything other than  _sensei_? It's so ingrained that if they let you, you would call them 'sensei' for the rest of your life, no matter what might happen between you after school was over? Yes? It was the same for us." Watanuki stops talking with some relief. Perhaps that would explain things.

"Why not Watanuki-sama, though?"

Watanuki's whole body cringes and he makes a pained face. "Because when I was a schoolboy, I was a young fool and a total idiot and I did really stupid things trying to impress Doumeki, sort of, except I really wanted to punish him for…um...being himself. It never worked. But I swore I'd make him call me _Watanuki-sama_  someday and—" he stops, realizing that he's been waving his arms all over the place, oodly-noodly, just like he used to before he became shopkeeper. He shudders. "I  _told_  you I was an idiot. I'd  _really_  rather not talk about it. It was completely stupid and I just— Look, if you called me that, it would give me airs." Watanuki forces himself to stop wiggling. "Which I really don't need."

Shizuka stares at Watanuki open-mouthed.

Watanuki realizes that somewhere through this speech he started standing and he drops into his seat, blushing furiously and pretending he doesn't notice how completely embarrassed he is by all of this.

"Please forget I just said all that," he says, covering his eyes. Even though it's probably an impossible request.

"Oh. Okay." Shizuka just blinks.

Feeling somewhat relieved, Watanuki sits straight again and leans onto the table. "Okay. I have something I need to ask you. Do you have a wish?"

"I wish to know about my great-grandfather," says Shizuka immediately.

"Why?" asks Watanuki.

"I…" he turns indecisive again. "Sometimes, I…"

Watanuki decides it must have something to do with the matter Shizuka had hesitated talking about before, and raises his eyebrows. "Have dreams, like you said before? Remember things you shouldn't? Things that happened to someone else?"

Shizuka nods.

"You're your great-grandfather's reincarnation," says Watanuki, swallowing thickly.  _Like he promised me._ "Your family must not be too happy about that."

Shizuka stares at the table. "I…I don't know. I try not to let on…" he mumbles.

"I see." Watanuki frowns.  _That confirms it._  "Well, that's certainly worth the price of weekly errands which I happen to be in need of."

"What errands?"

"Fetching groceries, mainly," says Watanuki. "The ones that your family is already delivering, and any special ingredients that I would like. Your father doesn't know how to cook, clearly, because he doesn't know how to choose, so you're going to take that chore off his hands. But I'll teach you, and you'll help me out from time to time in other ways. Probably as payment for the bigger aspects of your wish that you aren't aware of right now. Don't worry, those will be few and far between."

"It  _sounds_  reasonable…" Shizuka looks down to consider it.

"Do it," Watanuki says briskly. "Otherwise you won't be able to talk to me at all. The only people who can see the wishing shop are those with a wish, or those with a wish that is being or has been granted. This is a small price, for that."

"All right." Shizuka shakes Watanuki's hand. "I'll do it. I've got to get going, though, I've got to go to school now."

"Good. Then come by in the afternoon. I'll draw up a list… And I should talk to your parents as well so they know what you're doing, and so we should arrange that. Also, I would like to get some sleep, so..."

"Sorry about that," Shizuka mutters, dropping his eyes to the floor.

He really is polite. Watanuki waves it off. "Never mind. I'll see you to the door." He escorts Shizuka to the front porch and watches as he walks back to school, the same school Doumeki attended. His heart aches a bit, and it feels a little heavy now. None of this, he had never expected…any of this.

Watanuki passes the window on the way back to bed.

In the dim, pinkish light, the  _sakura_  tree is blooming again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you wish to continue reading in the continuity of this fic, I highly recommend hightailing it to the first chapter of "Shall Your Wish Be Granted" (still in progress).


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